I don't understand why they announce these things in advance at all. If no one knows what you're going to present, they can't stop you from presenting. Attendees can be assured that even if they don't know what's going to be discussed, it's going to be good.
Because it is. A good RPG can keep you busy for 80 hours or more. A good strategy game will offer nearly unlimited replay value. A good shmup may take hundreds of hours before you get that 1CC. I like the 40 hour cinematic game format, but it's hardly the epic some people make it out to be.
Jade Empire, Mass Effect, pretty much the same as KOTOR. Different setting, same game. Not that that's a problem. It's a great formula, I hope they keep plugging different values into it.
it spawned violent gangs that were funded by the illicit substances
Remember allofmp3? Weren't they run by the Russian mob?
the laws themselves caused more problems than they could possibly have solved
Chilling effects from restrictive laws on copying cause more creative work to go unpublished than free copying would.
many of the problems attributed to alcohol then and illegal drugs now are caused by the laws themselves
Many of the problems attributed to piracy (artists getting screwed over) are caused by the organizations who actually hold the copyrights (see the RIAA accounting article we had a few days ago.)
It is very much like both alcohol and drug prohibition. It took just over 10 years to get the first repealed. It's been 60 years of the second, and only the first cracks are beginning to show. I hate to think what the next few decades of the War on Piracy will bring.
Filesharing today is a lot like Prohibition during the 1920s. I'm worried however that it will end up more like Prohibition of the 1990s-200s. That is, an endless war for which countless civil liberties are sacrificed.
Never do this. There's a reason the brake and throttle are on the same side, so you can only press one at a time. You are a bad driver and should not be allowed on the road until you can drive properly.
I entirely agree. But the kind of people we're talking about think that marriage needs to be "defended" by the government. You can't deal with that with a "live and let live" attitude.
Myself, I'm perfectly okay with people having different viewpoints. Even outright wrong ones. Why should I care about it?
Because they're likely to impose their beliefs on you. Like when they send you to jail for growing a plant they don't like. Or forbid you from marrying the one you love because it's "unnatural". Or when they squander your tax money on pointless foreign wars. Or when they try to teach your children that their religion is a good alternative to science. Or when their deference to authority allows rampant police brutality despite all evidence. I could go on, but you get the point. An informed populace is necessary for a free and functioning democracy. We haven't had either for a very long time. I want it back.
Putting kids on disney or nickelodeon and giving them access to nothing else is like putting them in a mcdonalds and never feeding them anything else. Sure, they won't die right away. They might even believe they like it. But you're depriving them of a whole world of healthy experiences.
And I'd argue that to some extent disney and nickelodeon are harmful to kids. They exist only to market products to your children. They use all sorts of psychological tricks on your children to manipulate them. Porn on the other hand is targeted towards adults. If a pre-pubescent kid finds porn, they say "ew" and click away to something else. It's really no big deal, unless it's some CP that some perv is trying to push on them. In that case, where do you think the pervs are going to go to find victims?
Me either. I think it had something to do with going to High School in a small city with 2 major universities. Half the economy was directly related to higher education, so even the jocks could see the value of nerdity.
The funny thing is that in my experience technology is used the worst the more further removed you are from subjects that really understand that technology. For example, in Science, Engineering, and IT you might actually find less computer usage than some classes in English or History which have no place using computers at all.
History would be an amazing application of computers. Every event in history is connected to many other events. What better way to convey that than with hypertext? English too. I bet you could make a great game out of diagramming sentences. My girlfriend's 2nd grader has learned a lot about grammar by doing mad libs on the web.
I pretty much agree with the rest of your post. It's not a magic wand, you have to use them thoughtfully, with purpose, and most teachers aren't ready to do that.
The only times I've ever heard people talking about Justin Bieber is when they're complaining that people talk too much about Justin Bieber. Is that the joke?
Newspapers have physical limitations that web pages do not. Ideally a newspaper would be several long scrolls, one per article. We have the freedom to do that on the web and we should.
It's because page-width is variable that multi-columns are needed. There is a visual usability limit to column sizes, about 5-10 words or so.
That does not follow. Yes, a 60 character column is optimal, but that doesn't mean you have to shove a bunch of columns right next to each other. One article should be one long column. Scrolling is easy, and it doesn't force us to keep moving our eyes from top to bottom like multi-column does. A single column would leave lots of whitespace, but so what? I'm not looking at the whitespace, I'm looking at the column. If anything, having more than one column is distracting.
Well ain't that a big fuck you to the user. No web design should ever disable features the user finds useful.
Re:The Internet as a business
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If you want to know why the "Information wants to be free" attitude is dying, it is because the Internet has been taken over by business interests
Not really. Facebook embodies the spirit of "information wants to be free". It is easier now to come by all sorts of personal data about people you've never met than ever before.
That's true. The first 30FPS are pretty worthless. But after you reach 60FPS, that's pretty worthless too. A $200 card that gives you 120FPS is not twice as good as a $100 card that gives you 60FPS.
Slashdot Mirror
If it's a small town paper, the trolls have nothing to do other than figure out ways around bans.
I don't understand why they announce these things in advance at all. If no one knows what you're going to present, they can't stop you from presenting. Attendees can be assured that even if they don't know what's going to be discussed, it's going to be good.
And then the millionaire dumped millions of barrels of oil into the fisherman's waters.
An RPG set in space? Unheard off
Star Ocean? Rogue Galaxy? Starflight?
Because it is. A good RPG can keep you busy for 80 hours or more. A good strategy game will offer nearly unlimited replay value. A good shmup may take hundreds of hours before you get that 1CC. I like the 40 hour cinematic game format, but it's hardly the epic some people make it out to be.
Jade Empire, Mass Effect, pretty much the same as KOTOR. Different setting, same game. Not that that's a problem. It's a great formula, I hope they keep plugging different values into it.
it spawned violent gangs that were funded by the illicit substances
Remember allofmp3? Weren't they run by the Russian mob?
the laws themselves caused more problems than they could possibly have solved
Chilling effects from restrictive laws on copying cause more creative work to go unpublished than free copying would.
many of the problems attributed to alcohol then and illegal drugs now are caused by the laws themselves
Many of the problems attributed to piracy (artists getting screwed over) are caused by the organizations who actually hold the copyrights (see the RIAA accounting article we had a few days ago.)
It is very much like both alcohol and drug prohibition. It took just over 10 years to get the first repealed. It's been 60 years of the second, and only the first cracks are beginning to show. I hate to think what the next few decades of the War on Piracy will bring.
Filesharing today is a lot like Prohibition during the 1920s. I'm worried however that it will end up more like Prohibition of the 1990s-200s. That is, an endless war for which countless civil liberties are sacrificed.
Never do this. There's a reason the brake and throttle are on the same side, so you can only press one at a time. You are a bad driver and should not be allowed on the road until you can drive properly.
I entirely agree. But the kind of people we're talking about think that marriage needs to be "defended" by the government. You can't deal with that with a "live and let live" attitude.
Myself, I'm perfectly okay with people having different viewpoints. Even outright wrong ones. Why should I care about it?
Because they're likely to impose their beliefs on you. Like when they send you to jail for growing a plant they don't like. Or forbid you from marrying the one you love because it's "unnatural". Or when they squander your tax money on pointless foreign wars. Or when they try to teach your children that their religion is a good alternative to science. Or when their deference to authority allows rampant police brutality despite all evidence. I could go on, but you get the point. An informed populace is necessary for a free and functioning democracy. We haven't had either for a very long time. I want it back.
No, it means that you're much more likely to die from cancer than if you were able to avoid dioxin.
You don't actually believe that, do you?
How do you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that something is "harmful to minors"?
Putting kids on disney or nickelodeon and giving them access to nothing else is like putting them in a mcdonalds and never feeding them anything else. Sure, they won't die right away. They might even believe they like it. But you're depriving them of a whole world of healthy experiences.
And I'd argue that to some extent disney and nickelodeon are harmful to kids. They exist only to market products to your children. They use all sorts of psychological tricks on your children to manipulate them. Porn on the other hand is targeted towards adults. If a pre-pubescent kid finds porn, they say "ew" and click away to something else. It's really no big deal, unless it's some CP that some perv is trying to push on them. In that case, where do you think the pervs are going to go to find victims?
You don't. You socialize with other people, becoming part of the herd. You're less likely to be picked off by a predator then.
Me either. I think it had something to do with going to High School in a small city with 2 major universities. Half the economy was directly related to higher education, so even the jocks could see the value of nerdity.
The funny thing is that in my experience technology is used the worst the more further removed you are from subjects that really understand that technology. For example, in Science, Engineering, and IT you might actually find less computer usage than some classes in English or History which have no place using computers at all.
History would be an amazing application of computers. Every event in history is connected to many other events. What better way to convey that than with hypertext? English too. I bet you could make a great game out of diagramming sentences. My girlfriend's 2nd grader has learned a lot about grammar by doing mad libs on the web.
I pretty much agree with the rest of your post. It's not a magic wand, you have to use them thoughtfully, with purpose, and most teachers aren't ready to do that.
The only times I've ever heard people talking about Justin Bieber is when they're complaining that people talk too much about Justin Bieber. Is that the joke?
Please go work on Gnome or something. The rest of us will be enjoying features we like.
Newspapers have physical limitations that web pages do not. Ideally a newspaper would be several long scrolls, one per article. We have the freedom to do that on the web and we should.
It's because page-width is variable that multi-columns are needed. There is a visual usability limit to column sizes, about 5-10 words or so.
That does not follow. Yes, a 60 character column is optimal, but that doesn't mean you have to shove a bunch of columns right next to each other. One article should be one long column. Scrolling is easy, and it doesn't force us to keep moving our eyes from top to bottom like multi-column does. A single column would leave lots of whitespace, but so what? I'm not looking at the whitespace, I'm looking at the column. If anything, having more than one column is distracting.
Well ain't that a big fuck you to the user. No web design should ever disable features the user finds useful.
If you want to know why the "Information wants to be free" attitude is dying, it is because the Internet has been taken over by business interests
Not really. Facebook embodies the spirit of "information wants to be free". It is easier now to come by all sorts of personal data about people you've never met than ever before.
That's true. The first 30FPS are pretty worthless. But after you reach 60FPS, that's pretty worthless too. A $200 card that gives you 120FPS is not twice as good as a $100 card that gives you 60FPS.